As President Joe Biden met with survivors and community members in Tulsa, Oklahoma Tuesday to remember the tragic massacre that occurred there 100 years ago, he announced that Vice President Harris would lead an invigorated push for voting rights across the country.
“To signify the importance of our efforts, today I’m asking Vice President Harris to help these efforts, and lead them, among her many other responsibilities,” President Biden said during remarks Tuesday.
It's an initiative that many see has having a small chance at success in a divided Senate, but one that comes at a time when efforts by Republicans to toughen election laws are happening across the United States.
Tuesday, as the Associated Press reported, Republicans in the state of Texas vowed to continue their push for one of the most restrictive voting measures in the country. Democrats over the weekend saw a victory in that state over the GOP effort, which is part of a larger one across the U.S., but Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is set to call back lawmakers for a special session to revive their failed efforts, for another try.
Biden appeared to recognize that he was handing his Vice President a tough job, as he announced the new plan to combat GOP efforts saying, “with her leadership and your support, we’re gonna overcome again, I promise you, but it’s gonna take a hell of a lot of work.”
Harris said in a statement that she, will work with "voting rights organizations, community organizations, and the private sector to help strengthen and uplift efforts on voting rights nationwide."
As CNN reported, deputy White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Air Force One Tuesday that the latest efforts by Texas Republicans is "part of a concerted attack on our democracy being advanced in state houses across the country on the basis of the same repeatedly disproven lies that led to the assault on our nation's Capitol on January 6."
The Biden administration has voiced concerns about voting rights, urging Congress to pass HR 1, also known as the For the People Act, and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, named after the late civil rights movement icon and Congressional representative who was a staunch voting rights activist.